McNamara's Syndrome: Being Late To The Game On An Internet Meme

from the what,-you-hadn't-heard-of-it? dept

Last week, Network World columnist Paul McNamara had an amusing post about some jittery Circuit City execs who had demanded that all stores destroy copies of Mad Magazine, after it made fun of Circuit City. While, Circuit City actually showed it had a pretty decent sense of humor in apologizing for the trigger happy exec who demanded the destruction of the magazines, the situation gave McNamara a chance to mention The Streisand Effect -- the phrase I jokingly coined years back, which has recently become a somewhat commonly used phrase.

McNamara, though, hadn't heard of it before -- which isn't really that surprising. While the phrase is used here and there, it's still mostly known among a rather small group of folks. But, McNamara wanted to know if there was a similar phrase for not knowing an internet meme until after everyone else seemed to know about it. I sent him an email suggesting that he use his own name as part of it because, for example, Mike Godwin gets a lot more attention for Godwin's Law than I'll ever get for The Streisand Effect (and not least of which is because Godwin's Law is a lot more interesting). McNamara seems to have taken my suggestion, and declared that being late to the game on an internet meme should henceforth be called McNamara's Syndrome. I'm all for it. Now, if only Paul were to send a cease-and-desist letter to Techdirt for mentioning his name in this manner, then he'd be sure to get some attention for the phrase.

Be glad that you don't get much attention for it...

I tell you, if I came up with a joke phrase about something, that later entered the jargon with serious usage as the Streisand Effect has seen, I'd be pretty depressed about it and the state of the world.